Welcome to old and new friends who are interested in discussing Cajun and other diatonic accordions, along with some occasional lagniappe....



CAJUN ACCORDION DISCUSSION GROUP

 

General Forum
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
View Entire Thread
Re: Re: Micing an accordion

For that Cajun/Zydecajun/Steve Riley/Wayne Toups/Jamie Bergeron/Kevin Naquin (and others) sound, go external. Old School is the Sure Mic element mounted on the outside. New School is the Audio Technica mentioned above clipped on to a custom holder or the bellows strap. This gives you a super clean accordion sound but with no bass. If you need bass Steve Riley's solution is a standard mic on a stand which he works on the bellows side when needed. He also does this for the Triple Row.
For that big fat dirty Zydeco sound go internal. Sure mic element mounted on the reed banks. Larry Miller sells both with intructions. I have installed both and it is easy. The hard part is soldering the wires. Now that is an art! I finally had to bring mine in to Alex Accordions on 48th St. in NYC and he resoldered everything to Space shuttle standards!

good luck.

A comment on old school external - dynamic vs. condensor

Just to expand a bit on what Johhny Ace said...

Yes, old school external is a Shure R-65 or similar dynamic mic. They are relatively cheap, and also stand up to abuse. Downside is that they are somewhat bulky. They were the standard for many years.

Then, in the late 80's early 90's, you began to see players like Steve Riley and others going to the small condensor mics from Shure and other companies. They had a nice clean sound and were more compact. But, they are also more expensive (as in twice as expensive or more) and can also be fragile, both in the mic element itself and also the thin or even flimsy wires connected to the mic element.

I can see both alternatives as being good choices. I never bought a condensor for external use, because I already had a Shure R-65 I got from Mark Savoy and was happy enough with it. Therefore, I don't have a lot of personal experience with the mini-condensors.

But I have spoken with some other players who started off with a dynamic mic, then switched to condensors, only to switch back to dynamic eventually. They would say things like the condensors mic are *too* clean, and didn't have the old time sound which they preferred.

-David

Re: Re: Micing an accordion

I use one of these - great for playing in a loud group, as the mic is very focused and doesn't feedback the other instruments. Of course, you'd need two if you want to mic the back end...the BBC used one of these on the box that Chris Hall played, when he played on "Later with Jools Holland" with Paul McCartney, doing "Brown Eyed Handsome Man".

Re: Micing an accordion

The audio technica mike is a great route to go. I've played with a few guys now who love them and we seem to have very few problems on stage.
LZ

Re: Re: Micing an accordion

I once used Blair's condensor mic. It was a fast change from one accordion to the next. Can't remember if it had an on/off switch or not. Wasn't bad at all, but as someone mentioned the cords are about as thick as those ya find on ear buds (thin).

But unless I'm wrong (help me out here), I believe you have to have a phantom power source (yes/no ?).

What I have, is the ole snap on shure, round ball with that black wind sock doo dad on the inside .. and the toggle on/off mounted on a funky looking chunk of aluminum plate ... oh yeah, it works fine for what little I use it. It's a tone monster through that 4x10 hot rod deville (which is pristine, cause I very rarely ever use it).
Down side? I don't have it in a wireless config. so that ya wind up with a long ole cord and have to avoid tripping over it.

What's the word on the best wireless arrangement?
suggestions?

Strangest ( perhaps a bad choice of words, rather most deversified set up sounds much better) I have seen was a dual set up on an accordion: Squeezer Larry Tonkin, had both external and internal on a single 10 button accordion... If I am not mistaken it may have been set up by Dana Mandell... if so, congrats Dana, it was a very clean looking arrangement with the external done up on plexiglass (as I recall)... it was a dual set up to be sure or is that shure(?).

Re: Re: Re: Micing an accordion

I use a wireless for both my external and internal micing. The samson AX-1 transmitter does a nice job.

Here it is attached to both an internal and external (old school) mic.




DP

Re: Micing an accordion

Man alive, what a great forum! Many thanks to all of you for the wealth of solutions! And that includes Cory who e-mailed me directly. Got to read all this two or three times and print it out, cause alot of the product nomenclature is Greek to me now, but I guess when you start to get into it, the various types of mics will gel in my mind. Got to visit one of the local music stores and talk to the sound guys.
Again, many thanks.
JB



Jamey Hall's most excellent Cajun Accordion Music Theory

Brett's all new Cajun Accordion Music Theory for all keys!

LFR1.gif - 1092 Bytes The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week

augusta.gif - 6841 Bytes

Listen to Some GREAT Music While You Surf the Net!!
The BEST Radio Station on the Planet!